Ouch.
That's what Melissa Ferrick, at 4 years old, would think when her violin instructor would smack her hand with his bow and tell her to play through her mistakes.
"That was really drilled into me at a very young age," she laughs as she drinks a coffee.
The instructor's wise words resonated with her while encountering electronic mishaps at a recent New York show, where her earpiece malfunctioned and she couldn't hear herself in the monitor. She simply laughed and took audience requests.
"My live shows are certainly not rehearsed," she says. "It's not a clean-cut thing, like a Britney Spears (show)."
Ferrick, who'll play at 10 p.m. Jan. 26 at Pink Nightclub in Detroit, feels that errors make her less robotic. It's that raw aura, paired with her fierce melodies and coarse voice, that has made the singer-songwriter a live lesbian magnet. But Ferrick, who came out early on, didn't always want to be herself.
She wanted to be a one-woman Nirvana. Or Liz Phair, who, when Ferrick was 20, was gracing the cover of Rolling Stone.
The folk-rocker admits she let her ego intercept her music. "I wanted to be famous. …I really wanted to fit in and to make it. And it didn't work."
Neither did a couple of tragic relationships, which she chronicled on 2000's candid "Freedom." Or a thankfully failed drug and alcohol problem. She's never had qualms about using her music as a filling for those cavities.
Therefore, Ferrick's eighth studio album, "In the Eyes of Strangers," isn't a departure from her brutally honest lyrics.
The album's cover, which features a serious Ferrick embracing her 11-year-old cat Moon, wasn't intentional. Instead, it turned into a happy accident.
Ferrick feels awkward standing in front of the camera. Should she smile? Should she smirk? Should she dance around her guitar?
"I don't really know what to do," she says. "And Moon came in the room and I was like, 'Oh, take my picture with Moon,' just for me really to have. … Then she got this one shot of me just holding the cat really stoically and (the photographer) was like, 'That's the fucking cover.'"
Ferrick eyed a man before recording. She ached to work with Ethan Allen, who's produced Patty Griffin, since "Freedom," but she couldn't afford him. The two kept in contact through e-mail, and after Ferrick racked up a cash cache from fan contributions, she threw the idea at him again. The album cost around $15,000 after paying for studio time, travel and musicians.
It was Ferrick's first time since 1995 crafting an album with a producer in a professional recording studio, she says.
"That's frightening," Ferrick admits, emphasizing the difficulties of forming a fan base, gaining other musicians' support and hiring a fairly priced producer.
Allen cut her a break, though. And his influence – making wicked noise from electric guitar and drums – gave Ferrick's music a sonic facelift.
"He doesn't impart a lot of him, like his ego, on a project," Ferrick says.
To most musicians having a producer and a complete band seems basic. But her last couple of records have been do-it-yourself.
The singer-songwriter released "Strangers" on her own record label, Right On Records, after facing hardships on independent labels, where the budget – around $5,000 – didn't give Ferrick much leverage to record. Also, the payout wasn't so hot.
"It's a whole other mode of living," she admits. "It's like, 'Can you rent an apartment or can't you?' It makes that much of a difference."
Losing touch
Ferrick musters most of her money from touring, where her extensive time away makes Moon "eat her feelings" (which, Ferrick notes, explains her full figure). Last year, exhaustion caused her to cut her show schedule short. "I've been making a living from live performances for the past … six years," she says.
As Ferrick's nestled on her own label, isolation has settled in. Contact with other musicians has become minimal and left only to occasional catch-ups at festivals.
"It's a thing that a lot of artists I know are going through right now," she confesses. "It's like, how do we create a community? I see it with queer artists, too, at gay prides and such."
Ferrick hugged folk powerhouse Patty Griffin – whose harder-edged "Flaming Red" album remains one of her favorites – at the Edmonton Folk Festival when both women met up after playing on opposite stages. But that was over three years ago.
"That's another example," she says, disappointed. "I haven't seen Patty (since)."
While playing the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival in August, Ferrick encountered those she's lost touch with over the years, including Jane Siberry.
"I felt completely accepted (there) and I felt open arms," she says, after returning from a six-year absence from the festival. "And I saw just about every walk of life."
Ferrick noted that, although the festival has a strict born-womyn-only rule, no one was turned away at the gate.
"I don't know what all the hoopla was about. I saw a lot of trans people there," Ferrick recalls. "I don't agree with the policy but that doesn't mean that I can't play it. I can go there and be somebody that will stand for change and that's trying to be audible that there should be a change and it should be inclusive."
